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Station Eleven Theme Analysis

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A significant theme of Station Eleven is life and death. The text explores death on a personal but also on a universal level. On a personal level, the reader gains an insight into the life of actor Arthur Leander before he reached his death. It appears that Arthur is the character in the text that connects the remaining characters together once he has died. As a result, his death causes personal consequences and affects on the lives of those that are left behind, both in a positive and negative sense. For example, as Jeevan encounters Arthur in his different occupations throughout the text, it is in their final union that Jeevan realises his calling in life, which is to help others by becoming a paramedic. Therefore, Arthur’s death brought …show more content…

The text depicts memories from before the collapse but also tells the story of the present day. As the text largely deals with death, memories play an important role as they act as a coping mechanism especially for Kristen who does not have a family around her. However, it is evident from the text that Kristen is thankful that she cannot remember any of the first years after the flu as she avoided the trauma of the deaths and the drastic change in civilisation. “I can 't remember the year we spent on the road, and I think that means I can 't remember the worst of it. But my point is, doesn 't it seem to you that the people who have the hardest time in this—this current era, whatever you want to call it, the world after the Georgia Flu—doesn 't it seem like the people who struggle the most with it are the people who remember the old world clearly?” (Ch37, P195). A reoccurring aspect of the text in relation to memory is Kirsten’s knives tattoo, which demonstrates the people that she had to kill to survive. Furthermore, the knives are a symbol and a reminder to her that she has survived the most traumatic, difficult and psychologically challenging time in her life so far. As well as that, the tattoo also symbolises her change as a person from when we first encountered her as an eight year old girl at the beginning of the

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